AI-enabled adversaries increased their operations by 89% year-over-year.

46% of SMBs saw AI-generated phishing in the past 12 months.

88.7% of identity leaders rate AI as important or very important to detection and response efforts over the next two years

42% of SMB respondents say AI cyberattack speed makes traditional human-driven patching and response times effectively obsolete.

28% of SMB respondents say AI is creating hyper-personalized social engineering attacks.

24% of SMB respondents say AI is lowering the barrier to entry for novice criminals.

SMBs plan to use AI in 2026 for threat detection (39%), incident response (34%), fraud detection (34%), and automated phishing detection (31%).

35% of SMB respondents say AI is creating adaptive and evasive malware.

When open source using organizations were asked if they took steps to improve its patch and vulnerability management processes in the last 12 months, 18.4% said they adopted AI/machine learning.

AI and automation serve as the primary catalyst for cybersecurity budget expansion for 44% of organizations, followed by cloud infrastructure growth (33%) and mainstream business AI adoption (32%).

96% of developers use AI-assisted tools to build mobile apps and SDKs.

81% of developers say AI-generated code has introduced new vulnerabilities.

More than half of developers are uncertain how to properly secure AI-written mobile applications.

Security professionals are 5.5 times more likely to believe defenders will use AI as effectively as, or more effectively than, threat actors over the next 24 months.

87% of CIOs say AI agents are already embedded in critical operations.

60% of CIOs say their own job would be at high risk if the AI market contracts or an AI bubble bursts.

29% of CIOs say they have repeatedly been asked to justify AI outcomes they could not fully explain.

74% of CIOs regret at least one major AI vendor or platform selection made in the past 18 months.

81% of CIOs say CEOs will have their compensation directly tied to measurable AI outcomes.

71% of CIOs say it is likely their AI budget will be cut or frozen if targets aren’t met by the end of the first half of 2026.